Jones wrote:I live in a small community in Wyoming and all around here there are Cattle farms and ranches, and some of your information is a little off. Sheep do over graze sometimes, but it is not as often or has as big of an impact as you think. Cattle over graze is much worse, and causes major drought, so they don't let it happen, with as little water there is anyway that would be stupid. I don't think you understand the control that there is over the grazing of livestock, also the population of Sheep and Cattle are kept at a steady number because over population causes disease ESPECIALLY in Cows.

If I may defend myself:
I think you may have misread my post - or perhaps I mistated myself. First let me distinguish that you seem to be referring to private agricultural land, whereas I'm dealing with federal public lands. Nevertheless, I think I do have a fairly good grasp of what controls regulate grazing since that happens to be part of my job .

I don't think that sheep grazing (head for head) is as harmful as cow. That much should be obvious, and I think I stated that in one fashion or another in my prior post.

What I do think is that for sheep farmers to compete economically, or produce pound-for-pound with the cattle-ranchers, the sheer number of sheep required may have a comparable or worse effect than cattle. You see, the question I was trying to address was how the impacts of the two species would compare, if the levels of their production were held equal.

Maybe my citation of historic overgrazing by sheep, having devastating impacts, made you think that I considered sheep grazing to be more harmful than cows...? It is true that they graze in a different manner than cows, and that left in an area too long, they will strip it entirely (especially the larger the herd gets). Grass and forbes will be eaten down to their roots, killing them off. So sheep are by no means an inocuous herbivore.

What did the parasitic Candiru fish say when it finally found a host? - - "Urethra!!"

Ouch! Yes that is what I thought, my mistake I didn't mean to get the wrong idea, but I'm not talking entirely about privately owned ranches, thank you. I understand what you mean now, I guess the last post could have been taken both ways.